Schools in Dubai are offering a range of activities and extra tuition for free as part of efforts to remove the ‘hidden costs’ of education in the emirate.
Ambassador International Academy, an affordable International Baccalaureate school which opened its doors in September in Al Khail, is providing incentives to parents amid increasing competition.
Tuition fees at the school, which range from Dh28,400 at the kindergarten level to Dh36,600 for grade four pupils, include after-school activities as well as music lessons.
The school provides classes in tennis, gymnastics, karate, swimming, soccer, chess, basketball, cricket, yoga, badminton and zumba free-of-charge to its pupils.
Kamal Kalwani, chief executive of Ambassador Education in Dubai, a private school operator, said the additional activities could save parents between Dh6,000 to Dh7,000 per year.
The school has established strong partnerships with music academies who will be providing music lessons to pupils at no cost to parents.
“Also, parents spend a fortune on tutoring their children. We will be providing extra help twice a week to pupils at the school,” said Mr Kalwani.
Clementina Kongslund, 42, a mother of two children aged six and nine, said she pays between Dh12,000 to Dh16,000 for tennis lessons every year.
Ms Kongslund said her decision to use free after-school 0 would depend on the quality of lessons and the level at which they were provided.
“If we want our children to compete at a national level in a sport, then it may not match our needs,” said Ms Kongslund.
“In Dubai, schools have very good coaches but it depends on whether the child wants to train for fun or for competition.
“What would happen if our child is good at sport and we want to train her at the national level?”
According to the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, Dubai’s private school regulator, more than 40 new private schools have opened in the emirate since 2016.
This year, five new schools have launched in Dubai, with a majority focus on providing affordable education.
Graham Beale, executive principal at Arcadia School in Dubai, which opened in 2016 and is expanding next year, said it was important to give parents good value for the money they spend on tuition fees.
“We thought that if we could remove the hidden costs, we could help parents,” said Mr Beale.
“We were able to provide a longer school day and offered an after-school programme.”
Foundation stage pupils can stay in school until 4pm, which means parents do not have to send their children to a nursery after school hours. Some grades have after school activities and allow pupils to stay in school until 5:30pm.
“We brought school activities into our school day and started enriching activities while ensuring parents did not to pay for these,” said Mr Beale.
Parents do not have to pay for uniforms at the school.
“We removed a lot of the stress for parents and that has been the secret to our success,” he said.
In 2016, the school started with just 70 pupils and now have around 550 pupils, while they aim to have a pupil population of 750 by next year.
Parents can choose up to two free activities which include basketball, ballet, football, gymnastics and modern dance.
“I think we took some risks by paying for all the things that a parent is normally charged for. We almost had no choice as 14 other schools opened the year we did, and many of them also followed the British curriculum,” he said.
“We had to be innovative and do unique things to make parents come to us.”
© The National
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